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| Woolwich Cemetery |
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Woolwich Cemetery is in two parts, west and east, divided by Rockcliffe Gardens. It was founded in 1856 by Woolwich Burial Board who laid out the 12-acre west site, which was formerly part of Plumstead Common. The cemetery has its original Early English style brick Anglican chapel on the brow of the hill. The old lodge of the west cemetery was demolished in 1960, a new lodge built in 1969. The east site was bought in 1885 and is still in use. Within the west cemetery is a white marble Celtic cross commemorating 120 people buried here who were lost in the Princess Alice disaster on the Thames on 3 September 1878 when the collier steamer 'Bywell Castle' collided and cut the pleasure steamer in two. Of the 700 people on board only 69 survived, poisoned rather than drowned due to the polluted water of the Thames. The cross was erected by a National Sixpenny Subscription to which over 23,000 people contributed, and the disaster brought about the establishment of sewage treatment plants for the Thames. The memorial cross to Temple Leighton Phipson-Wybrants is also in the older cemetery, who died in command of an expedition exploring the Sabi River in East Africa on 29 November 1880. His body was brought back at his mother's instigation and buried here on 7 October 1881. In the newer eastern cemetery is a small relief sculpture of Sister Gladys Richards-Lockwood (d.1955) shown with spectacles in her nurse's uniform. |
